Book Discussion: Re-Reading

 

Jessica at A Great Read posted a discussion titled Guilt for Re-Reading?  She asked if you feel guilty for re-reading when you have books at home you haven't read yet at all.

I tend not to feel this way, despite how many unread books I have at home. And I go out and get more library books, when I could be reading from home (but that's another story).

It seems I get the re-read prompt every year in at least two different challenges. When it comes time to decide what to re-read, I tend to go off what I already have. If I look up a book from the library on Goodreads and see that I've already read it (I'm surprised how often this happens), I often tend not to re-read the book in question. For one I already had at home, it turned out I'd already read that one and had no wish to read it again. For some books, once is enough. I may donate a book after I read it, if I feel I won't have a desire to re-read it.   Some I just keep, without feeling certain if I want to repeat them. And when it does come time to want to do a re-read, it can be hard to decide what to take off the shelf for a second go-around. I decided to re-read this one just last month. 

There are also those prompts that say "Re-read a childhood favorite" or "A book you had to read in school" or some variation. It can get even harder to fulfill this one. I've re-read so many books I had as child and cannot remember all the books I had to read in school. And just how far back can I go when it comes to books read in school? Does that include college? I feel free to interpret this how I see fit.

What is your take on re-reading?

Election Cartoons and Videos

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂   

Here are some cartoons and song parody videos about the upcoming election. I don't like discussing politics much, but the videos and cartoons were too hard not to share. And it was hard to just pick 13.

Readers Imbibing Peril (RIP) XIX

A favorite seasonal challenge. RIP XIX is hosted at this Instagram account. Begins September 1 and ends October 31. Will get as many books as possible then.

My Books:

1. Plants vs. Zombies Volume 1--Paul Tobin
2. The House in the Pines--Ana Reyes
3. Briarheart--Mercedes Lackey
4. Horrible Harry at Halloween--Suzy Kline
5. The Ghost in the Gallery--Carolyn Keene
6. The Devil's Novice--Ellis Peters
7. Little Witch Hazel--Phoebe Wahl
8. Jade War--Fonda Lee
9. Crave--Tracy Wolff
10. Rebecca--Daphne Du Maurier
11. The Captive--Victoria Holt
12. I'd Know You Anywhere--Laura Lippman

Challenge completed on October 29

13 End-of-Summer/Beginning of Fall Reminders

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂   

Most of these came up on Facebook recently. Others I found or took pictures of.

 

Been seeing this at Dollar Tree since 
the end of July.

Moved to one corner to begin fall
displays. School displays have since
been taken down.

Fall 2024 Reading Challenge@ Beyond the Bookends

 Click here.

1. Time Loop Books: The Sentence--Louise Erdrich
2. Coming-of-age Story: Far From the Tree--Robin Benway
3. Serial Killer: I'd Know You Anywhere--Laura Lippman
4. Celebrity Romance Novels: Celebrity Superhero--Jennie Bennett
5. Historical Mystery Books: The Devil's Novice--Ellis Peters
6. Witch Books: Little Witch Hazel--Phoebe Wahl
7. Cozy Books: Powdered Peril--Jessica Beck
8. Feel-Good Nonfiction Books: Favorite Dog Stories--James Herriot
9. Fantasy Romance: Crave--Tracy Wolff

Challenge completed on November 7

13 Troublesome and Bizarre Reading Categories!

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂   

This is also a book-themed post, so I will be sharing it to the Book Blog Discussion Challenge as well.

Every year, the different reading prompts get more bizarre and hard to determine a book for.  Here are some this year (in no particular order) that I have some difficulty finding something for.  I try Googling ideas, but often come  up with books I likely won't be able to find without buying them. I'll see an obscure title and figure it won't be at my library (that often is the case).  And results can be spotty, of course, not quite pertaining to the particular search info. I don't look up every single title or name I come across, but who has time for that? If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them, hoping I'll be able to find them:)

1. MC who collects something unusual. (From this challenge). Hmm.. What is something unusual that a person might collect? Lots of people collect coins, bottle caps, stamps, toys, sports cards. Googling this one produces very spotty results, few if any, related to book. Of course, I don't have time to go through every single result, but the top ones have no book suggestions.
2. Poetry by a Black British writer (Feminist Reading Challenge):The top search for this one produced only one familiar name, Bernadine Evaristo, whose book of poetry Girl, Woman, Other, I have at home. I read it already, and am not sure about rereading it just yet. None of the other top results from this search are familiar to me. I'm willing to discover someone new to read, but none can be found in my library database. 
3. Book mentioned in a TV show or streamed series (Two variants on this theme at two different challenges). I was having trouble with this one, until I checked the Goodreads group for one of the challenge (just now) and saw that a book I just completed is part of the Gilmore Girls Reading list. I'll have to go back and add that one. Since I never saw that show, I'm only somewhat familiar with the list. I have to find books for in other reading categories, but always have to look at the list. 
4. Book revealed to be a literary hoax or forgery (Robot Librarian): The Goodreads group for this one provides a Wikipedia link with suggestions. One I have already read and others that seem hard to find. Some I've looked up in my library database, to no avail, but one is on Project Gutenberg as an E-book. It's a little long, but may be my only choice.
5. Instagram find/recommendation (several variants on this idea at different challenges). This might not seem too difficult or bizarre to some people, but Instagram is rarely the place where I look for book ideas. I know I'll have to do this and it's not hard to do, but I just have push myself to do so. Just not used to this idea:) Who has found book recs on IG?
6. TikTok find/recommendation (again, several variations on this idea at different challenges). Since I don't use TikTok, this is nearly impossible!  I know I can look up recommendations for this, and have tried this already, but just have not completely decided on anything. So many people I know have started using TikTok, but I'm still unsure of getting into it myself. 
7. Lowest rated book on your TBR. This is certainly not meant to be an absolute thing. I mean, who has time to look up all the ratings for all the books you have on your TBR, whether it's those you already have or those recently checked out from the library? Readers are free to interpret prompts their own way, so I'll have to pick two or more books I have to see which has the lowest Goodreads rating out of each of them. This seems like a good approach for this one.
8. Set in space/space race/with space aliens (again, different variations on this topic). On the surface, this may not seem like a difficult category, but as someone who reads very few space-related genres, trying to decide on book for this one is taking time. I plan to read only one such book this year, if I can get it to cross over into the different challenge categories. 
9. Protagonist is a plant. How bizarre is this one? I looked for a Goodreads listopia on this one, but this is all that came up. (Protagonist is a dungeon?--I now know where to look if anyone ever comes up with that as reading category)  Horror stories with an evil attacking plant is one of the things that came to my mind upon seeing this category. One of the pictures in this bingo challenge is a plant--a plant as protagonist would also work well for this one.
10. Read a book by an author with an upcoming event (virtual or in person) and then attend the event (Book Riot): The first thing that came to mind when I saw this was not being able to afford to go to any such events. Even virtual events can have fees. But I have decided to approach this one as someone on the Goodreads group for the challenge suggested. Only complete the first part. Look up any upcoming author events, and read a book by any of those authors. 
11. Recommended on a podcast (More than one variation on this one as well). As someone who doesn't listen to podcasts, this one is hard. One of the challenges with this prompt is this year is PBN. I'll just look at the site to see what they recommend and use it for all the challenges that have this category. Seems like the best solution for this.
12. Book recommended for your zodiac sign. I recently started looking for books for this one. A lot of the ones that came up were books I've already read! But I did find one that I've never read that caught my interest. I had a feeling it would not be at my library, but it is!
13. A book from Editors Pick on Amazon for your birth month. I have done some searching for this one, but have not chosen anything. I will have to go back to this one soon.

And those are just some categories I have found a little challenging this year. One that I was having trouble with but finally finished last month was "NFL team" for this one. The title has to contain a word that is found in the name of a team, and the first things that crossed my mind were the words "eagles" and "cowboys." I don't watch football, so I am only familiar with so many team names!  I was also trying to finish up the Color Coded challenge with a title for the color brown. I then remembered about the Cleveland Browns, so I decided to count the title with brown for the NFL team as well.  Now I've got those two done! 

I don't want to get started on "Started but never finished," but I've gotten this one many times in different year, and have it twice this year. It's rare that I never begin book without finishing it. Almost never, in fact. Again, since categories are open to interpretation, I have often gotten around this one by trying to complete a series I'd started but didn't finish. Or at least continue with the next book in sequence. I keep thinking I'll pretend to start a book, then go back and read it in full later.

What are some bizarre reading categories you have encountered? Or difficult ones for you?

Fonts Used So Far in My Work-in-Progress

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂   

Fonts I Have Used So Far in My Work-in-Progress. I managed to find 13 of them, several of which I had not used previously.

More Experimenting with Formats

After a few days away, I returned to working on my new manuscript. I attempted to create a blog entry using borders around the text. I just now added grey to the background of the text boxes, to see how it looks. I printed it out last night before adding the grey. Still deciding on that detail 🙂 It's so much fun to keep experimenting. 

I still haven't attempted to incorporate emails into the story, but I just learned that the fake domain example.com can be used for fake email addresses. I discovered this through some of the templates in Pages for resumes, business cards and on some of the letter templates (the one I used did not have an email example).  

And I have been mostly typing this one immediately on the computer, unlike some times when I write notes on paper before typing them out. I somehow thought about this old blog post. I tend to still do it this way, but the unusual format experiment has made this seem difficult for this particular writing. Since I won't know what images will look like in the document until I try them out in the document. Though I may write out texts or ideas ahead of time before deciding what unusual format to set them in. Tables and pie charts are some I have not yet tried to use, but don't yet know if (or how) I will incorporate these into the story yet. And I am still wondering I will be adding web images. I'm re-working on the  parts I have already typed, and have yet to go on from there. 

Do you write in a notebook before typing onto the computer? I've always made sure to have notebooks for this. Even if I may not need any right now. But they are good to have if an idea for the story hits me when I'm off my computer. I will take down the idea, then decide on the formatting later.

August Bookish Bingo

Here is the card for August.

My books:

1. Henry Heckelbeck Breaks a Leg--Wanda Coven (2 squares): E-Book, In a  Series
2. The Stepsisters--Susan Mallery (6 squares): Physical Book, Library Book, Not in a Series, Book Club Read, Someone from the Past, Clever Character Names
3. Fry Bread--Kevin Noble Maillard (1 square): Food On Cover
4. Emily Windsnap and the Monster From the Deep--Liz Kessler (4 squares): Audiobook, Animal Character, Animal on Cover, Ghosts
5. Growing Up Trans--Lindsay Herriot & Kate Fry [eds.] (1 square): Multiple Authors
6. Countdown--Deborah Wiles (3 squares): Music, Mystery, Puzzle
7. Bergdorf Blondes--Plum Sykes (2 squares): Free Book, Free Space 
8. The Kept Woman--Susan Donovan (5 squares): Rom-Com, Shelf Love, Feel-good, Friends to Lovers, Heat

24 squares completed n August 27 (No pre-ordered books)

Field Trip Pictures

 A few selected pictures from our group trip on Wednesday. It was a great experience. Before going to the park, we stopped to get some drinks at Togo's and Starbucks and some of us looked at a toy store that was nearby. Before heading to the shelter, some of us went to look at TJ Maxx and at a local bookstore. I did not find any books I wanted :(

Some pictures from the park:

These are just a few of the cats we saw at the shelter. My phone battery got low before I could get any pictures of the dogs at the shelter :( There were also rabbits. Those were the ones we saw.

Thursday 13: MTV, Olympics, Election and Seasonal Merchandise

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂  

A very odd assortment of topics today:

            Ain't this the truth (though I never bothered 

with MP3s or subscription services). And I mostly had cassettes.

Launched on this day in 1981.
Now it's nothing but crap.
I did not have it until 1989, and even then they
began de-emphasizing the videos.

And since the Olympics are happening now (though I don't watch them):

And with the election on the way:

And with stores already stocking seasonal items:

 

I overdid the Olympics one even though I don't watch them :) Though I liked the one with the cats (I like anything with cats).

I will be talking about the fall seasonal stuff as the fall season approaches. It's getting to be that time.

Not sure about blogging about politics, as I rarely do that. But know I'm all for Harris.

I still have a lot of CDs, but am unsure if my player still works. I can listen to a sing on Youtube when I get the urge to hear it.